A Blizzard Under Blue SkyPam Houston has taught creative writing at Denison University in Ohio, where she completed her undergraduate studies, and her short stories have appeared in various liter­ary magazines. Presently completing her doctoral studies at the University of Utah, Houston is also part of the world of women's fashion magazines as a contributing editor for Elle and a frequent contributor to Mirabella and Mademoiselle. For a number of years, Houston has also worked part-time as a river guide and hunting guide in the western United States and has written about those activities for the publica­tions Outside and Travel and Leisure.

Houston's interest in the outdoors forms the core of the stories in Cowboys Are My Weakness (1992), stories that have been described as "exhilarating, like a swift ride through river rapids," as well as "beautifully written and funny." In "A Blizzard Under Blue Sky," the exhilaration comes from sharing a winter adventure in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, while the beauty of the writing is exempli­fied by this magical description of snow: "[it] stopped being simply white and became translucent, hinting at other col­ors, reflections of purples and blues and grays." Much of the humor in the story is based on the American fondness for believing that pets think and act like humans. Another fea­ture of Houston's style is that she reflects her generation's habit of referring to items by brand names. She also some­times teases by not directly identifying a character's gender, using a name that could be either a man's or a woman's and letting a simple pronoun do the work, perhaps contradicting the reader's expectations.

A heavy snowstorm with high winds, the "blizzard" of the title, matches the narrator's mood at the beginning of the story. She tells us that "everyone /n Park City," a resort area near Salt Lake City, Utah, was happy except her. Could that be literally true, or is she exaggerating to make fun of her­self? What could have caused such self-pity and depression? And what do you suppose she did about it? How did she find the "blue sky" that is the proverbial symbol of happiness?

A Blizzard Under Blue SkyThe doctor said I was clinically depressed. It was February, the month in which depression runs rampant in the inversion-cloaked Salt Lake Valley and the city dwellers escape to Park City, where the snow is fresh and the sun is shining and everybody is happy, except me. In truth, my life was on the verge of more spectacular and satisfying discoveries than I had ever imagined, but of course I couldn't see that far ahead. What I saw was work that wasn't getting done, bills that weren't getting paid, and a man I'd given my heart to weekending in the desert with his ex.

The doctor said, "I can give you drugs." I said, "No way."

She said, "The machine that drives you is broken. You need something to help you get it fixed." I said, "Winter camping." She said, "Whatever floats your boat." One of the things that I love the most about natural world is the way it gives you what's good for you even if you don't know it at the time. I had never been winter camping before, at least not in the high country, and the weekend I chose to try and fix my machine was the same weekend the air mass they called the Alaska Clipper showed up.

It was thirty-two degrees below zero in town on the night I spent in my snow cave. I don't know how cold it was out on Beaver Creek. I had listened to the weather forecast, and to the advice of my housemate, Alex, who was an experienced winter camper.

"I don't know what you think you're going to prove by freezing to death," Alex said, "but if you've got to go, take my bivvy sack; it's warmer than anything you have." "Thanks." I said.

"I hope it turns out to be worth it," he said, "because you are going to freeze your butt."

When everything in your life in uncertain, there's nothing quite like the clarity and precision of fresh snow and blue sky. That was the first thought I had on Saturday morning as I stepped away from the warmth of my truck and let my skis slap the snow in front of me. There was no wind and no clouds that morning, just still air and cold sunshine. The hair in my nostrils froze almost immediately. When I took a deep breath, my lungs only filled up halfway.

I opened the tailgate to excited whines and whimpers. I never go skiing without Jackson and Hailey: my two best friends, my yin and yang of dogs. Some of you might know Jackson. He's the oversized sheepdog-and-something-else with the great big nose and the bark that will shatter glass. He gets out and about more than I do. People I've never seen before come by my house daily and call him by name. He's all grace, and he's tireless; he won't go skiing with me unless I let him lead. Hailey is not so graceful, and her body seems in constant indecision when she runs. When we ski she stays behind me, and on the downhills she tries to sneak rides on my skis.

The dogs ran circles in the chest-high snow while I inventoried my backpack one more time to make sure I had everything I needed. My sleeping bag, my Thermarest, my stove, Alex's bivvy sack, matches, lighting paste, flashlight, knife. I brought three pairs of long underwear - tops and bottoms - so I could change once before I went to bed, and once again in the morning, so I wouldn't get chilled by my own sweat. I brought paper and pen, and Kool-Aid to mix with my water. I brought Montana House chicken stew and some freeze-dried peas, some peanut butter and honey, lots of dried apricots, coffee and Carnation instant breakfast for morning.

Jackson stood very still while I adjusted his backpack. He carries the dog food and enough water for all of us. He takes himself very seriously when he's got his pack on. He won't step off the trail for any reason, not even to chase rabbits, and he gets nervous and angry if I do. That morning he was impatient with me. "Miles to go, Mom," he said over his shoulder. I snapped my boots into my skis and we were off.

There are not too many good things you can say about temperatures that dip past twenty below zero, except this: They turn the landscape into a crystal palace and they turn your vision into Superman's. In the cold thin morning air the trees and mountains, even the twigs and shadows, seemed to leap out of the background like a 3-D movie, only it was better than 3-D because I could feel the sharpness of the air. I have a friend in Moab who swears that Utah is the center of the fourth dimension, and although I know he has in mind something much different and more complicated than subzero weather, it was there, on that ice-edged morning, that I felt on the verge of seeing something more than depth perception in the brutal clarity of the morning sun.

As I kicked along the first couple of miles, I noticed the sun crawling higher in the sky and yet the day wasn't really warming, and I wondered if I should have brought another vest, another layer to put between me and the cold night ahead. It was utterly quiet out there, and what minimal noise we made intruded on the morning like a brass band: the squeaking of my bindings, the slosh of the water in Jackson's pack, the whoosh of nylon, the jangle of dog tags. It was the bass line and percussion to some primal song, and I kept wanting to sing to it, but I didn't know the words.

Jackson and I crested the top of a hill and stopped to wait for Hailey. The trail stretched out as far as we could see into the meadow below us and beyond, a double track and pole plants carving through softer trails of rabbit and deer."Nice place," I said to Jackson, and his tail thumped the snow underneath him without sound.

We stopped for lunch near something that looked like it could be a lake in its other life, or maybe just a womb-shaped meadow. I made peanut butter and honey sandwiches for all of 105 us, and we opened the apricots.

"It's fabulous here," I told the dogs. "But so far it's not working."

There had never been anything wrong with my life that a few good days in the wilderness wouldn't cure, but there I sat !'o in the middle of all those crystal-coated trees, all that dia­mond-studded sunshine, and I didn't feel any better. Appar­ently clinical depression was not like having a bad day, it wasn't even like having a lot of bad days, it was more like a house of mirrors, it was like being in a room full of one-way glass.

"Come on, Mom," Jackson said. "Ski harder, go faster, climb higher."

Hailey turned her belly to the sun and groaned."He's right," I told her. "It's all we can do."

After lunch the sun had moved behind our backs, throw in a whole different light on the path ahead of us. The snow we moved through stopped being simply white and became translucent, hinting at other colors, reflections of blues and purples and grays. I thought of Moby Dick, you know, the whiteness of the whale, where white is really the absence of all color, and whiteness equals truth, and Ahab's search is finally futile, as he finds nothing but his own reflection.

"Put your mind where your skis are," Jackson said, and we made considerably better time after that.

The sun was getting quite low in the sky when I asked Jackson if he thought we should stop to build the snow cave, and he said he'd look for the next good bank. About one hun­dred yards down the trail we found it, a gentle slope with east­ern exposure that didn't look like it would cave in under anycircumstances. Jackson started to dig first.

Let me make one thing clear. I knew only slightly more about building snow caves than Jackson, having never built one, and all my knowledge coming from disaster tales of win­ter camping fatalities. I knew several things not to do when building a snow cave, but I was having a hard time knowing what exactly to do. But Jackson helped, and Hailey super­vised, and before too long we had a little cave built, just big enough for three. We ate dinner quite pleased with our accom­plishments and set the bivvy sack up inside the cave just as thesun slipped away and dusk came over Beaver Creek.

The temperature, which hadn't exactly soared during the day, dropped twenty degrees in as many minutes, and sud­denly it didn't seem like such a great idea to change my long underwear. The original plan was to sleep with the dogs inside the bivvy sack but outside the sleeping bag, which was okay with Jackson the super-metabolizer, but not so with Hailey, the couch potato. She whined and wriggled and managed to stuff her entire fat body down inside my mummy bag, and Jackson stretched out full-length on top.

One of the unfortunate things about winter camping is that it has to happen when the days are so short. Fourteen hours is a long time to lie in a snow cave under the most perfect of cir­cumstances. And when it's thirty-two below, or forty, fourteen hours seems like weeks.

I wish 1 could tell you I dropped right off to sleep. In truth, fear crept into my spine with the cold and I never closed my eyes. Cuddled there, amid my dogs and water bottles, I spent half of the night chastising myself for thinking I was Wonder Woman, not only risking my own life but the lives of my dogs, and other half trying to keep the numbness in my feet from crawling up to my knees. When I did doze off, I'd come back to my senses wondering if 1 had frozen to death, but the alternat­ing pain and numbness that started in my extremities and worked its way into my bones convinced me I must still be alive.

It was a clear night, and every now and again I would poke my head out of its nest of down and nylon to watch the progress of the moon across the sky. There is no doubt that it was longest and most uncomfortable night of my life.

But then the sky began to get gray, and then it began to get pink, and before too long the sun was on my bivvy sack, not warm, exactly, but holding the promise of warmth later in the day. And I ate apricots and drank Kool-Aid-flavored coffee and celebrated the rebirth of my fingers and toes, and the survival of many more important parts of my body. I sang "Rocky Mountain High" and "If I Had a Hammer," and yodeled and whistled, and even danced the two-stop with Jackson and let him lick my face. And when Hailey finally emerged from the sleeping bag a full hour after I did, we shared a peanut butter and honey sandwich and she said nothing ever tasted so good.

We broke camp and packed up and kicked in the snow cave with something resembling glee.

I was five miles down the trail before I realized what had happened. Not once in that fourteen-hour night did I think about deadlines, or bills, or the man in the desert. For the first time in many months I was happy to see a day beginning. The morning sunshine was like a present from the gods. What really happened, of course, is that I remembered about joy.

I know that one night out at thirty-two below doesn't sound like much to those of you who have climbed Everest or run the Iditarod or kayaked to Antarctica, and I won't try to convince you that my life was like the movies where depres­sion goes away in one weekend, and all of life's problems van­ish with a moment's clear sight. The simple truth of the matter is this: On Sunday I had a glimpse outside of the house of mir­rors, on Saturday I couldn't have seen my way out of a paper bag. And while I was skiing back toward the truck that morning, a wind came up behind us and swirled the snow around our bodies like a blizzard under blue sky. And I was struck by the simple perfection of the snowflakes, and startled by the hopefulness of sun on frozen trees.

A Blizzard Under Blue SkyPam Houston

(born 1962 - )

I

IntroductionHere are some answers about P.Houston. Give your questions:--------------------------------------------------------------------------? In Ohio--------------------------------------------------------------------------?

Her short stories

----------------------------------------------------------------------------? Ell----------------------------------------------------------------------------? University of Utah.------------------------------------------------------------------------------?

Vocabulary and Grammar1.Find in the text, translate into Russian :-rampant, inversion-cloaked, on the verge, bivvy sack, still air,

tailgate, twigs and shadows, crested the top, whiteness of the whale,

winter camping fatalities, super-metabolizer, couch potato, to drop off to sleep, to doze off, pain and numbness, to kick in, to kayak, to swirl around, simple perfection of the snowflakes, hopefulness of sun on frozen trees.2. Who says it? Report these statements:-The machine that drives you is broken. You need something to help

Write down the most original--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------the most picturesque----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4. Re-write this passage, changing the Past verb forms into

a) the Present verb forms b)the Future forms. Make all necessary changes.I was five miles down the trail before I realized what had happenedNot once in that fourteen-hour night did I think about deadlines, or

bills, or the man in the man in the desert. For the first time in many

months I was happy to see a day beginning. The morning sunshine

was like a present from the gods. What really happened, of course,

is that I remembered about joy.5. Write down word combinations with Snow(find in the text)….

I wish I would……….I wish I had known……I wish I could tell you I dropped right off to sleep.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8. Think of 5-6 sentences with Present Perfect Continuous andPast Perfect Continuous. Use the words from the story.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------9. Unjumble the underlined words:-The doctor said I was lliiaclancy sseeerddp.-I brought Mountain House ncckeih west.

-I made teapun ttrube and honey adsshnwchi

for all of us. -Apparently clinical rsseeoinpd was not like having a bad day.

-And I was struck by the simple oeerpfictn of the wolfssanlk. 10. Insert phrasal verbs and translate into Russian

(chill out, open up, mull over, join up, give in, put into,

kick in ,kick back, wade through,j oin up) you don’t need all

of them.1) Doctor recommend her to---------------------------------some

8) Debbie was eventually ----------------------------------this strange

situation.

9) You must------------------------------a group of optimists.

2

Speaking1. Who is the narrator in this story? Why doesn’t the author directly

identify a character’s gender?2. Retell the story on the part of:A. Hailey B. Doctor C. Alex D. Jackson E. The main hero3. Paraphrase, explain and translate:It was February, the month in which depression runs rampant

in the inversion-cloaked Salt Lake Valley and the city dwellers escape to Park City, where the snow is fresh and the sun is shining

and everybody is happy, except me.

I opened the tailgate to excited whines and whimpers. I never go

skiing without Jackson and Hailey: my two best friends , my yin

and yang of dogs.

It was utterly quiet out there, and what minimal noise we made

intruded on the morning like a brass band: the squeaking of

my bindings, the slosh of the water in Jackson’s pack, the whoosh

of nylon, the jangle of dog tags. It was the bass line and percussion

to some primal song, and I kept wanting to sing to it, but I didn’t

know the words.4. Give a sketch-portrait of the main hero.5. Act out a conversation between the main hero and her doctor.6. Which of the characters of this story appeals to you more? Why?7. Render into English:-Никогда не сдавайтесь! Проигрывает тот, кто потерял надежду. Благодаря надежде предпринимаются самые рискованные путешествия, преодолеваются боли и беды. Многие бывают бессильными перед неудачами, останавливаются на полпути из-за слабости своей веры. Но настоящие борцы всегда выигрывают. Они продолжают борьбу с жизненными неурядицами, выживают при любых бедствиях. Думай всегда о хорошем и не отчаивайся!8. Give a short summary of the story.9. Explain the meaning of the last lines.10. What do you think could have caused such self-pity and depression of our hero?11. How did she manage to change her mood?12. How did she find the “ blue sky’ –the symbol of joy and happiness?3

Writing1. Write a diary of our Hero. 17th February--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2.Translate into Russian from “It was a clear night, and every now………………’up to ………resembling glee.”3.Suggest some remedies from depression:

7.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4.Imagine you are the real Hero. Write a letter to your college

И Ильф Е.Петров Одноэтажная Америка6. Write a summary of the story in 160-180 words,

Now cut it to 40 words. Which words you can’t omit?7. Explain the meaning of the last line.(5-6 sentences)8. Re-write the ending of the story:

Make it more a)funny b) pessimistic c) adventurous d)optimistic9. Describe your most favourable Season. What kind of Weather do

you prefer?(100-120 words)10. Do you have any pets? Write some 8-10 sentences about your

small devoted friends.11.Give the most precise literary translation.

…”When they had disappeared over the crown of the ridge

Jody followed the two man out of the house. The dogs trotted

around the house corner hunching their shoulders and grinning horribly with pleasure. Jody patted their heads –Doubletree Mutt with the big thick tail and yellow eyes, and Smasher, the shepherd, who had killed a coyote and lost an ear in doing it. Smasher’s one good ear stood up higher than a collie’s ear should. Billy Buck said that always happened.

After the frenzied greeting the dogs lowered their noses to the ground in a businesslike way and went ahead, looking back now and then to make sure that the boy was coming. They walked up through the chicken yard and saw the quail eating with the chickens. Smasher chased the chickens a little to keep in practice in case there should ever be sheep to herd.”J Steinbeck The Red Pony

5Uncommon Words or MeaningsRead, translate into Russian, make 8-10 sentences.-Clinically depressed - suffering from a severe and continuing

feeling of deep sadness.

-To run rampant - to grow without limit.

-an inversion - an increase in air temperature with elevation that

traps particles of dust and smoke at lower altitudes.

-an ex -(informal) a previous romantic partner.

-a bivvy sack - a large canvas bag

-Kool-Aid -a brand of sugar and flavoring to be mixed with water

to make a drink.

-lighting paste - a sticky, flammable substance used to help wet wood burn.

-yin and yang -(Chinese philosophy) yin-the negative element, represents the female qualities of darkness and the sky; yang-the positive element, represents the male qualities of light and the earth.

-a Thermarest - a brand of inflatable, insulated mattress.

-Mountain House - a brand of freeze-dried food, eaten after boiling

water is added.

-Carnation instant breakfast - a brand of powered milk with flavoring and nutrients added, drunk after being mixed.

-Miles to go - an allusion(an indirect reference) to the closing lines

of the poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening“ by R.Frost:

“ But I have promises to keep,/And miles to go before I sleep,/

And miles to go before I sleep/”

-the forth dimension - something beyond length, breadth and thickness (height, width and depth); usually taken to be time.

-bindings - the foot fastenings on a ski.

-a dog tag - a small metal disk attached to a dog’s collar to identify

the dog’s owner.

-primal - from the time of the first humans.

-Moby Dick - in Herman Melville's 19th-century novel of the same

name, a huge white whale pursued by Captain Ahab.

-a fatality - an accidental death.

-couch potato -(slang) the sort of person who likes best to sit on a

couch while watching TV and eating.

-a mummy bag - a sleeping bag that is wider at the head than at the foot.

-to chastise - to criticize severely.

-Wonder Woman - a comic book character with superhuman powers.

-the Iditarod - the annual 1,200 mile Alaskan dog sled race from

Anchorage to Nome.

-to kayak - to travel in a kayak, a light single-seat boat propelled

with a double paddle.

Ohio-Ohio takes its name from an Iroquois Indian word meaning

“big”, or “great”. The Indians first used this word to describe Ohio

River.

A. Find the nickname of Ohio. B. When did Ohio enter the Union?Find similar information about the State Utah, Alaska, Florida.Answer the question: There is only one place in the United Stateswhere four states meet. Where is it?------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Search the Internet. Find, watch and analyze on You Tube “A “Blizzard” under blue sky.( Video) Compare it with the story.

1 From Donald Hall, "The Books Not Read, the Lines Not Written: A Poet Confronts His Mortality." The New York Times Book Review, August 1, 1993.autobiographical memoir String Too Short To Be Saved (1961) tells of the same New Hampshire family.

2 Jackson recounts this in "Biography of a Story," a lecture reprinted in her posthumous collection Come Along with Ms, edited by her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman (1968). A carefully-documented and sympathetic treatment of Jackson's life can be found in Judy Oppenheimer, Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson (1988).